A Self Made Man
by OhSoDeadly
Summary: Vic Vega was a simple man. At least, he thought so. He took the greatest pleasure from working a job, reaping the rewards and getting to meet new people. So when Joe Cabot asked him to become blonde for a heist, he didn't think twice.


_Well I don't know why I came here tonight,__  
__I got the feeling that something ain't right,_

He should've known it was a botched job. The whole thing had smelt rotten from the beginning. But it had been as a favour to Nice Guy Eddie, and by extension Joe. They'd been good to him, and him them. An ideal professional relationship. Boring at times, but, well...there were ways to alleviate that boredom. Mostly involving other people. And hey, if Vic Vega was anyone, he was a people person. Others just didn't understand that. Not before he was finished being _social,_ and certainly not after.

Eddie did. No matter what stories he heard about Vic, he'd stayed loyal. Vic could appreciate that. Enough to call him a friend, even if the word felt strange and foreign in his mouth. Friend. Not something you often encountered in his line of work. There was the job to be done, the people in the way of that job. Anyone else involved...well, that was just their bad luck, right? What he did wasn't personal, though he couldn't deny it didn't give him a laugh when he saw their faces when he started working. Their neat little lives, going like clockwork, then..._oh. _Add Vic Vega to the equation, ladies and germs, and watch the show. Volunteers welcome.

_I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,__  
__And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,_

So he'd been caught on his way back to the rendezvous, carrying hot items that had no business being in the trunk of his car. It was nothing new. He was used to taking a risk, playing the wildcard, making it up as he went. Others in his line of work...well, they didn't like that way of things. They wanted a plan, they wanted instructions. Like putting a puzzle together, or lining up sandcastles on the beach. Well, that wasn't his way. Plans were fixed. Plans couldn't be flexible, not for him, anyway. So he made do without them. And anyone not quick enough to catch up deserved what they got. Down the sandcastles go. Outrun the tide if you can.

But whatever the case, he'd been nabbed. A pull-over for a broken taillight, of all things. The cop had been mild-mannered, friendly even. Not that it mattered to him. Friendly, mean, white, black, married or single, cops were all the same. Possible threats and a pain in the ass whatever you were doing. He'd been tempted, right there and then, to _step out of the car please, sir_ and grab the kid wearing the blue by the neck and swinging his skull into the windshield, _once, twice, three times._ Home run. Home safe.

That was the closest he'd ever come to a plan, he had realised with some amusement. Getting out of being caught and going to prison wasn't on his to-do list. Wasn't on anyone's, really. So he'd made conversation with the cop, laughed once or twice when he'd started talking about his baby daughter's antics down at pre-school. All the while thinking: _how do I finish this quickly? ___

Clowns to the left of me,_  
__Jokers to the right, here I am,__  
__Stuck in the middle with you_

He'd said something about tying his shoelace, then struck the cop underneath the chin. Listened to his neck go _pop_ and make that odd noise that told you he'd been waking up with a chainsaw headache, if he woke up at all. Back into the car and hitting the road. Make up some lost time. He had a reputation to maintain, after all.

As luck would have it, another patrol car had been coming along, just in time to see him give the cop what he deserved. They were like cockroaches-as soon as you squashed one, the whole damn bunch would come crawling out to say hello. So down the highway he fled, sirens blaring behind him and that oh-so-familiar red and blue flashing in his vision.

He'd gotten sloppy. Only a little, but Vic had figured out early in his career that sometimes a little was all it took. His brother Vince had known that all too well, before their lives took each other apart and into obscurity. The patrol car had chased him all the way down the highway but he'd ignored every single turn-off he could have taken. This was better, he'd decided. Make them work for their paycheck.

And the son of a bitch in the car (he hadn't caught a glimpse of him, but God he wished he had) called ahead, and set up a roadblock. So there he was, between a rock and a hard place. At that point, a plan and no plan had no distinction. He'd been caught with hot items, sentenced to four years in prison and put amongst some of the worst criminals the city had to offer. At least, that was what he'd heard about the place. But to him they just seemed...boring. All bluster.

_Yes I'm stuck in the middle with you,__  
__And I'm wondering what it is I should do,_

The cops had offered to cut him a deal. A deal, as he leaned back in his chair picking at the thread of his new orange jumpsuit and giving the man in the suit opposite him a cool stare. _Co-operate with us, _he'd said, wiping his glasses in a nervous gesture that didn't escape anyone's notice, not the men behind the glass and certainly not him, _and we'll let you go. We know you were working for someone. Give us a name, Mr. Vega, and you're a free man._

Tempting. If it had been anyone else, he would've nodded and said, _sure thing, detective_ and that would've been that. Out of prison and back to enjoying a late-night burrito at Samuel's on the weekend. But it hadn't been just anyone. Joe was a good guy, and he'd always given him good jobs to carry out. Plus, Eddie would never forgive him. It wouldn't be the act of a friend to rat them out. He had guessed that part; Vic wasn't used to thinking about other people where he was concerned, unless they were part of his no-plan.

So he'd refused. And the cell door slammed shut, night after night.

_It's so hard to keep this smile from my face,__  
__Losing control, yeah, I'm all over the place,_

Prison had been a change of pace for Vic. Before, he'd been the one running, and life had been the one struggling to catch up. But now, they were neck and neck. Wake up, breakfast, exercise, recreation, dinner, lights out. Rinse and repeat. For the next one thousand, four hundred and sixty days. It had been...hell. No, more like Purgatory. He didn't believe in either but the latter seemed to fit more.

He'd very nearly gone mad, one particular night. When the whole thing had hit him, like a shotgun blast. Staring open-mouthed at the featureless roof of his cell, eyes wide with horror and brain paralysed. What was this? He wasn't outside. He wasn't working a job. He wasn't breathing fresh air, or smoking a cigarette. So what did that mean?

He was in the joint. And for a while, in the joint he'd stay.

Vic had screamed, hollered and yelled. Kicked and beat at the walls, until they'd sedated him and kept him in the infirmary for a few days. When they sent him back, he was fine. Cheerful, even. He didn't have much memory of his time after the...incident...but it didn't really matter. For now, he would bide his time.

_Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right,__  
__Here I am, stuck in the middle with you_

The guys on the inside hadn't really interested him much, and even if they had, there was no way to satisfy that interest. So he mostly kept to himself. The guards noticed this behaviour, rewarded him for it. A single cell, library privileges, better meals. They were still hoping he'd give in and spill Joe's name. Once he'd figured this out, he took steps.

During rec time in the yard, he'd found one of the bigger, more troublesome ones. Sized him up, thought it through. Plans he hated, thinking he didn't. After he was done, he walked up to the man, who'd scowled at him through yellow teeth. "What?"

Smiling back a little, Vic had taken the sharpened toothbrush from his jumpsuit and stabbed the man in the side. Red had mixed with the orange and made a funny in-between colour. He was fascinated by the effect of it, the play of blood over fabric, until he felt something hit him in the head and he saw nothing more.

The guards hadn't been happy with that, but Vic was indifferent. Guards were just cops with steadier jobs. As for the men they watched over, they didn't mean nothing. Not to him.

_Well you started out with nothing,__  
__And you're proud that you're a self made man,  
_  
_And your friends, they all come crawlin,__  
__Slap you on the back and say,__  
__Please... Please...  
_  
They'd come for him, one night when there was no moon. Somehow contriving to make sure that no-one else saw what happened. One moment he was lying on his bunk, hands folded behind his head and humming a little Lee Marvin to himself. Then without warning his cell door slid open and there they stood, shadowy figures all filling in the doorway like strange creatures made of oil, like something right out of a drive-in horror flick. Then the first, stinging strike of a nightstick.

The bastards had whaled on him for hours, using their fists, boots and sticks. Every so often, a little break, and a grunting voice in his ear. It was, he reflected with wry amusement, a little bit like getting fucked from behind. You felt everything, heard everything, but saw none of it. Of course, he'd never asked a broad what it was like when she was the one on the receiving end. Unlike other times, when he was finished in that situation, he wasn't much one for talk. Least of all questions like that.

They wanted him to break. To cough up a name, a location, hell, anything. Something they could use. Things on the outside were tough, they'd said, and they were through messing around. But they could all go blow a goat for all Vic cared. Joe and Eddie would be waiting for him on the other side, and he would stay true to that. So he stayed grimly silent, while his bones broke and he didn't.

_Trying to make some sense of it all,__  
__But I can see that it makes no sense at all,__  
__Is it cool to go to sleep on the floor,__  
__'Cause I don't think that I can take anymore_

He figured that would be it. They couldn't keep this up, night after night, without the warden smelling a rat of some kind. Bruises took time to fade, after all. Not every guard in the prison was in on it either. Logically, they should have given up after a few nights of intense beatings weren't enough to break him.

But when Vic was honest with himself, logic was just a stone's throw away from a plan. And, just like _every single plan he'd ever taken and pulled the plug on_ it fell apart within a week. The midnight "sessions" didn't get any better. They got worse, in fact. Twice he'd been sent to the infirmary for blood transfusions or something.

_Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,__  
__Here I am, stuck in the middle with you._

He'd gone a little whacko. There was no denying that. When he'd worked out that lying there and just taking it didn't solve much of anything, he'd fought back. Snarling and fighting like an animal. Using his teeth. The sort of undisciplined shit that Joe wouldn't have stood for on the outside, because it was the hallmark of a messy job. But prison was a different world. So that was the way it had to be. A few times he'd managed to get them to back off. But more often than not, they'd beaten him into next week.

_Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,__  
__Here I am, stuck in the middle with you._

And then, suddenly, the beatings stopped. His nights resumed their normal boredom. When he corresponded with Joe, the old man had disclosed some information-in code, of course. He'd gotten wind of the way things had been going, made a few calls, paid the right people. A surprising amount of warders ended up being transferred out or fired in the next few weeks. Not only that, but he started to get mail parcels for the first time...well, ever. From Joe, of course. Contraband disguised as run-of-the-mill stuff. Cigarettes concealed in pencils, booze disguised as skin lotion. That sort of thing. The sort of stuff that was like gold in prison.

And that was it, more or less, for the next few years. More of the inmates tried to give him shit, from time to time, but that was a piece of cake after what he'd been through.

_Well you started out with nothing,__  
__And you're proud that you're a self made man,__  
__And your friends, they all come crawlin,__  
__Slap you on the back and say,__  
__Please... Please..._

Then the day came when his sentence was done and he was released. As he was given his personal effects, and walked out through the doors, back into the sun, all he could think was: _I could do with a burger._ The past four years just seemed to dissolve away. Doing time, he realised, was really just that. Nothing to remember it by.

So he got that burger ($5.95 and no onions? The world had gone to hell since he'd gone to the clink), and then found out the downside to being released. A fucking parole officer. A fucking curfew. A fucking piece of shit job, that he needed to get real quick, or end up in the shit. At least prison had been a cakewalk. Now, back in the real world, he almost wanted to be back in that stinking rathole. Almost.

Skagnetti was the parole officer's name, a real motherfucker. A squinty-eyed little shit who fancied himself a real tough guy. Built like a matchstick house, but even so. Vic had loathed him on sight. You got guys like this on the inside, on the outside, everywhere. There was no getting away from them. The only difference was that in prison you could usually deal with them, 'cause everyone else was thinking the same thing. Out here, he had to play nice. And by the sweet ass of Madonna herself, it was killing him slow.

So he went to see Joe, first chance he got. Took him months to leave the halfway house, what with that prick Skagnetti on his case 24/7, but he got there in the end. Sat in his office for the first time in years, felt the varnished wood beneath his hands, had a Remy Martin. The stuff burned his throat. Vic ignored it. There were more important things to attend to.

_"__When do you think I can come back and do some real work?"_

Joe had been reluctant to bring him back in, after just getting outta the slammer. But then Nice Guy Eddie had mentioned a job. Not the piece of shit fake one he was getting set up with, though the idea of no work and free pay was certainly attractive. But an honest-to-goodness heist!

_"How would you feel about pullin' a job with five other guys?"_

Vic had said, "I'd feel pretty great about it." And he'd smiled, first real one in years.__

So he'd jumped right back into the pond, so to speak. Never let it be said that Vic Vega was afraid of a little hard work. Mind you, what others called _hard work_ was often a Sunday picnic by his standards. And now, he realised with some amusement, even more so. He was an old con. He'd done time. He'd seen the grimy insides of a prison. Don't fuck with him, or else.

Then one breezy summer night they congregated, at one of the warehouses Joe had claimed for "business purposes." Vic was only too well acquainted with what that meant, having been arrested in one. Joe had been there, and so had Nice Guy. But the other five he didn't know. Had that look about them, though. The look that said they were hovering somewhere between cool professionalism and barely-concealed greed. Well, they were fishing for diamonds. Understandable.

Five men, all the colours of the rainbow. Well, not quite.

"Mr. Brown!" Scrawny little guy, had a smirk that pissed Vic right off for some reason. Seemed harmless enough though.

"Mr. White!" Older guy, almost as old as Joe. Probably the most experienced man there, aside from Vic himself, but still. An old dog, trying to learn new tricks. Seen it a thousand times.

"Mr. Blonde!" _Heh. Good one._

"Mr. Blue!" Another old guy. He'd never worked with this many before on a job. Didn't say much. It was hard for Vic to get a read on him.

"Mr. Orange!" A kid. A fucking kid. What the fuck was he doing on a job like this? He had no business being here. Was he even on the level? Then again, if the kid was a rat, just how much trouble could he be? Little shit.

"And Mr. Pink." Skinny guy, full of energy though. Always kept focused during the briefing, except when he was bitching about his name. Seemed the kind who liked plans. That didn't sit well with Vic.

Joe had laid down the plan. Simple bank heist, snatching the diamonds. He and Mr. Blue would be on crowd control, making sure nobody did nothing they weren't supposed to. Blue had complained about it, in between coughing and hawking up phlegm like a goddamned vacuum. Said it was a bullshit role. But Vic was more than happy to do it. Not only was he working a job, he got to do what he liked. Being a people person. Getting to know people.

So when they burst in, guns up and voices screaming to _get on the fucking ground, stay fucking still_, Vic felt an almost sexual rush of pleasure course through him. Hell, this was better. To these people, cowering and whimpering like so many goddamned sheep, he was God. He held their lives in his hands. They were his. But he wouldn't have fun with them today. They were on the clock. So Vic had kept himself in check. Thinking, almost dreamily: _it's good to be back._

Only trouble being that when the time came for the diamonds to be lifted out and brought to Mr. Brown waiting in the car, some sonuvabitch customer being held hostage went all hero. Tried to set off the alarm, bring the cops down on their heads. If there was one thing he'd told 'em to do, one fucking thing, it was not to touch the alarms. He'd made that quite clear, hadn't he? No-one could say he hadn't. So there wasn't the slightest bit of wrong in blowing the fucker's brains out. Along with all the rest of the pricks who could've spoken up, spared everyone a whole lotta grief. It served them right.

But by then the damage had been done. The job was a bust. So much for simple. Well, a fucking huge number of the boys in blue had come outta nowhere. But Vic was used to thinking on his feet. No fucking _plan_ was gonna stop him from making a getaway.

Blue caught two bullets in the head and dropped like a sack of tomatoes. Shame, but there you go. Life rolled one way, and it wasn't always the way you liked.

The car had been parked conveniently behind the bank, left there by some bank teller or another. He'd almost had the damn thing hotwired and ready to go, when some young punk in a shiny new uniform 'n' badge started yelling at him to put his hands up, get on the ground, all that bullshit. Nothing he hadn't heard before. Nothing he hadn't thought about and then given a cheery "go fuck yourself."

A casual rising of the hands, a pretend stumble. Saw the kid move forward, going for his handcuffs. Lashing out with a fist, catching him in the side of the head. Saw his eyes roll up into his head, an almost carbon copy of the other cop he'd dealt with before his arrest. Maybe all the cops in this city were built in a factory, and they could all be turned off the same way. Certainly would explain the fucking uniforms. And the fucking attitude that went with it.

Back in the car, now with an unconscious cop in the trunk. Vic couldn't say why he'd decided to take him along. Couldn't tell you if you'd asked him. Maybe he felt like he was owed something, even if it was a young piece of shit cop. Probably had a family, kids, mortgage, all that crap. Well, if Vic knew anything, it was that folks like that thought it would do them some kind of good in times of trouble. Sometimes, when he'd had a few or he was feeling in a particularly bad mood, he thought: _it's my job. To show them how wrong they are._

He'd pulled over at a fast-food joint just opposite the place, because after a shitstorm like that, damn, but he needed fries and a soda.

Dropped by the warehouse, found White and Pink inside, guns drawn and shouting at each other like married men who'd just found out their wife was fucking the guy next door. Oh, and Orange bleeding out on the floor but he didn't care about that. Even the positions were similar, one on the floor, one standing above. Made him chuckle, to see that. The whole damn thing was funny. Here were two guys who had gone to pieces roughly the same time that the plan did. And to cap it all off, Pink went off his head at him _and_ White, yapping about "being professional." Is that what they'd been doing? Jokers, the pair of 'em. Like when White damn near exploded at him. Well, it had been a fair question, hadn't it? _"Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?"_

Showed them what he'd brought along, and they'd trussed Officer Shithead up real well. White and Pink had lost it once again, whaling on him and going on about some set-up or something. A set-up? Didn't seem likely. Everyone had been on the level, Joe had said so. There weren't many Vic trusted but Joe was always a "yes" in Vic's book. So that made it all bullshit. He grabbed himself a seat, on top of some packed boards and just watched the little doggies bark.

Nice Guy turned up not long after that, and then he had to explain himself because Eddie was actually a good joe unlike the rest of the worthless pricks he'd been saddled with for his job. Hadn't apologised for any of it either. He'd told them not to touch the fucking alarms, hadn't he? So going _bam, bam, bam _in the bank, as White had put it, was perfectly justified. None of 'em would understand except Eddie. And he was right. He didn't think there was a set-up either.

Got told to stay with the cop, which irked him a little. But someone had to get the goods, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be him. When the door slammed shut, he felt that thrill again. Like a kid who's realised he's all alone in the house and he can jack off to his Playboy without being disturbed. Secret, safe, alone. Just the way he liked it, when it was just him, entertaining…company. Orange was still out like a fucking light.

He'd pulled up a chair, gave the cop the once-over. Beaten up, bleeding, that dazed look like a dumb animal that had no idea it was headed to the chop. Then, because it felt like the sort of thing he should do, expected of him, even, he let the cop blub about how he didn't know anything and how they never told him anything and blah, blah, fucking blah. What a whiner. Even said that Vic had a boss. That was unacceptable. Deserved much more than a slap across the face, hell, a knife to the crotch would be more like it. He didn't have a boss. Never had one, never would. Not even Joe was his boss. No fucking way.

So at that point, he decided to put it all away. No more of this bullshit. And, because his mom had raised him to tell the truth, whenever he could, he gave it to the cop straight.

_ "__Listen kid, I'm not gonna bullshit you, all right? I don't give a good fuck what you know, or don't know, but I'm gonna torture you anyway, regardless. Not to get information. It's amusing, to me, to torture a cop. You can say anything you want cause I've heard it all before. All you can do is pray for a quick death, which you ain't gonna get."_

And it was true. Every word of it. Say one thing for Vic Vega, say that he's honest.

Fortunate, that he kept a razor on his person. Fortunate, that there was a portable radio in the room. And hey, K-Billy's "Super Sounds of the 70's" was on. Maybe this day would be alright after all. He knew it for fact when "Stuck in the Middle" came blaring out of the plastic box. A smile came to his face, and he felt a youthful energy fill his limbs. Not the dark, thrilling kind that he'd felt during the heist. A simpler one, the same kind he got when enjoying a good beer, or watching the game. It was important to stay in touch with those sorts of things.

The lyrics coalesced, and he sang along with them.

_"Well I don't know why I came here tonight,__  
__I got the feeling that something ain't right,__  
__I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,__  
__And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs,__  
__Clowns to the left of me,__  
__Jokers to the right, here I am,__  
__Stuck in the middle with you."_

But then the chorus faded and so did the energy, so he swiped with his razor and laid open one side of the cop's face. Immediately, he started jerking and grunting with the pain, sounded like a pig in an abattoir. Didn't bother him. Still didn't, even after he got down to business. Ignored the spurts of blood and god knew what else and the barely-muffled screams from the cop (_if he didn't stop jerking and moving around like that he was gonna lose a lot more than an ear_) and when he finally came away from the whole thing there it was. An ear. A cop's ear.

But the fun was just beginning. The cop might be having trouble hearing but he was still kicking and screaming. Literally. So he remembered what he'd packed in his car, and he meandered out of the doors with The Stealers still in his ears. A song in his heart, ha ha.

The sun was still out. If he was lucky, the weather would hold out like this for the rest of the week. He saw some kids in a playground across the street and he smiled at them. They smiled back.

Walking back in, he slipped back into his dance. Movin' to the groove, as they say. But he'd heard this song a hundred times, and he'd done this dance a hundred times more. And not just the literal kind either. The thought made him smirk as he sauntered towards the cop, gasoline tank in hand. Swish, swish swish. All that oil, all of that potential destruction. They always told you as a kid, don't play with fire. But how could he resist it now? Especially where a fucking _cop_ was concerned.

Splash, splash! Vic watched the cop splutter and shriek underneath the hail of flammable liquid. For a moment, it reminded him of playing near the fire hydrant out in the street when he was younger, with Vincent. They'd always start off with splashing, but eventually Vince, who was older and bigger, would get tired of that and just wrestle him to the ground and put his face against the flow, until, spluttering and crying himself, Vic would plead for relief.

How the tables turned. Watching the guy writhe around as the gasoline burned and stung his fresh earhole brought a smile to his face.

Christ, he just wouldn't shut up. Even the gag was barely doing anything to stem the noise. Fuck it. He reached forward and tore off the stained tape, and the cop just kept on hollering. "No! No! Stop! Stop!"

Vic _hated_ this part. It was like the whining, complaining, bitching of a child who couldn't have a candy bar. Sometimes it was gratifying to hear them plead and squeal like pigs who had suddenly gotten the smarts to realise they were destined for a grinder, but _fucking hell_ the noise just wouldn't stop. And worse still, he couldn't do anything to shut him up. He leaned down in front of the cop in mock concern. "What? What's the matter?"

Blubbering, the cop screeched, "Don't do this. Please!"

"That burn a little bit?" He splashed some more on, for good measure. Funny as hell. He wished he had the chance to do this more often.

He stepped back and started to shake out a thin trail of gasoline along the floor, ignoring what the guy in the chair was saying. Still talking about not knowing anything! It didn't. Fucking. Matter. Vic had been very clear on this point, and he was annoyed that the cop still didn't get it. He wasn't after answers. He was after some _fun. _And he was going to get it. He could almost taste it. The crescendo of this little symphony was nearly here.

Vic held up a hand. "You all through? You all through?"

"Please, I've got a little kid at home-"

_Tell someone who cares._

He searched his pockets for a lighter, and found one. It made a satisfying click as he ignited the pilot light, and he turned it over in his fingers. "How about fire? You scared of-"

Then he heard the sound of thunder inside the warehouse, and all of it seemed to be around him. Suddenly he was being thrown backwards, like a rag doll, and he felt small things punch him in the chest. His brain was moving slow, trying to play catch up. What had just happened to him?

As Vic Vega's rapidly dying body sprawled on the ground, chest riddled with bullets, he managed to lift his headwith an effort and saw the upright form of Mr. Orange, gun in hand, still pulling on his trigger. _Click. Click. _He had run dry.

And at that final moment, he didn't feel anything but grudging admiration. _The fucking kid. He's got some stones._

And then there was nothing.


End file.
